To evaluate the survival rate and other significant clinicopathologic characteristics of the vulvar carcinoma.

The study included 37 patients diagnosed with vulvar carcinoma and admitted in Kangnam St Mary's Hospital from January 1990 to July 2004. We reviewed the patient's average age, disease stage, histopathology, therapeutic approach including the type of surgery and its response, disease free survival rate, and 5-year survival rate. The changing patterns in the trend for inguinal lymph node dissection and postoperative reconstruction were analyzed.

The average age of vulvar carcinoma patients was 57.2 years and the histological type of squamous cell carcinoma was the most common (n=28, 75.7%). In the patient distribution according to stages, stage II included 17 patients (45.9%) and surgical treatment was performed on most of patients. Total 33 patients received the surgery and inguinal lymph node dissection was performed on 28 cases among them. The classical method of en-bloc butterfly incision was the choice of surgery before the year of 2000. However, from the year of 2000 three-separate incision was the preferred method. Postoperative reconstruction was performed on 16 patients (48.5%). The reconstruction rate was 37.5% (1990-1999) and 58.8% (2000-2004). We observed that the disease free survival rate was 73.0% and 5-year survival rate was 92.8%. The cancer recurrence rate was 18.9% (n=7) and the average period for discovery of recurrence was 34 months.

Considering high survival rate and low recurrence rate as observed in this study, we conclude that vulvar carcinoma has relatively good prognosis. We observed that as years passed, postoperative reconstruction and three-separate incision methods for inguinal lymph node dissection instead of en-bloc butterfly incision were performed in effort perhaps to reduce postoperative complications and improve the patient's life quality after the surgery.